Durante
by tortgirl
Summary: One shot. Everyone's back to the firt layer and the team is waiting for Cobb and Saito to wake up. In this time Arthur and Ariadne bond a little.


**A/N: Hi, I have not written a fanfic in over a year. But I saw Inception, I loved it and Inception fanfics are now my personal crack. I decided to write this one shot as a type of closure on what I speculate happened. I'm really rusty and this is not betaed, but I still hope you enjoy this and review. Thank you!**

It had been a few hours since the kick. Yusuf and Arthur had just taken Cobb and Saito's bodies back to the warehouse where they had kept Fischer. Ariadne was waiting in the corner not sure what she should do. They were hiding. The projections were still after them, even though Eames had gone with Fischer to calm him down and distract him for the remainder of the dream. They had about four more hours to go, that was about three days in the dream. Arthur and Yusuf were talking about ways to get Cobb and Saito back. She couldn't hear what they were saying. Arthur had his hands on his hips and was talking firmly to Yusuf and Yusuf just shook his head. Arthur then rubbed his eyes with one hand and started pacing. Ariadne was worried. About Cobb, about Saito, about Mal getting to Cobb. It was a lot to worry about and she just couldn't take it anymore. She didn't want to argue, she knew there was nothing she could do. It was all Cobb now, she had faith in him. That's all she could have. She fell asleep on the wall.

She woke up and found Arthur sitting next to her. He wasn't sleeping he was just staring at the wall a passive look on his face.

"Yusuf says that tomorrow around midday the sedative should be less active so we'll be able to kill ourselves and wake up." He said as he turned to look at her.

She nodded. "What about-"

He stopped her. "There's nothing we can do. It's all Cobb now. He has to get himself out, we can't kill him here it won't do anything. It might make things worse. He'll wake up when the sedative wears off, him and Saito will wake up." He sounded like he wanted to convince himself more than her.

"What if it's too late by then?" She asked not trying to make things worse but to get genuine answers to all these questions bubbling up in her.

His face had a blank expression. "It won't. It's only four or so hours. How bad can it be?"

"I hope so." She said quietly. She looked down at her knees and stayed silent for a few moments the looked at Arthur again. He still looked worried.

"You care a lot about him don't you?" She asked softly.

He shrugged. "I spend most of my time with him, if I didn't like him, I'd kill him."

She smiled at that and scooted closer to him.

"You seem to care a lot about him." Arthur said avoiding her gaze. "You did a lot for him."

"I did a lot for the job. I did it for him too, just because I have this annoying voice in my head that always says 'fix this, Ariadne. Fix this.' Plus it's a lot of talent to waste." She said lightly.

"So you don't…" He trailed off letting the question hang in.

"Don't what?" She asked. They were looking at each other now, intently.

"Harbor feelings of a romantic nature?" He said this, cleared his throat and looked away.

"No." She said blankly. "I don't have a crush on Cobb. If that's what you're asking. Gosh, one nice thing and suddenly I have to like him, give a girl some credit."

"Sorry." He mumbled.

"And by the way!" She said louder this time. "What was with that kiss on the second level? We both know you knew that wasn't going to do anything with the projections. Come on what gives?"

N-nothing gives." He half stuttered. "I- it was just an experiment." He started to guard himself. His body language was closed off and he was glowering.

There was an awkward silence and then Ariadne broke it.

"I'm not saying it was bad or anything-just…" She looked for the right word. "Unexpected."

He looked at her then with raised eyebrows. "I have a girlfriend. Well…had. Last time I went stateside I found her in our apartment with some other guy living there. I wasn't that torn up about it because I hadn't really seen her I like six months but I was still pretty hurt, but the this job came and I got absorbed in that and found myself getting over it. I couldn't help but think…maybe…maybe you had something to do with that." He finished and looked away from her again. They were sitting even closer now but not facing each other,

"Arthur?" Ariadne asked.

"Yeah?" He replied gruffly,

"Do you harbor romantic feelings for me?" She asked with a small smile.

There was a pause but he responded with a: "Yes, Ariadne. I do."

They still weren't looking at each other. Ariadne just smiled and nodded.

"Let's talk more about this when we're on the plane, okay?" She asked.

He nodded and she patted his knee and got up to talk with Yusuf.

The next day Eames was back without Fischer. It was time to go.

"So you're sure that if we shoot ourselves in the head right now we won't join dear Cobb and our friend Saito?" Eames asked Yusuf.

"I'm positive. The sedative has already worn itself, we're back to regular sleep cycles now, a hard kick from the plane or us dying will wake us up. Now let's go I really have to pee."

It was a gory mess shooting each other is never fun and Arthur ended up with killing himself in the end.

They all woke up on the plane. Fischer, Cobb and Saito still asleep.

Yusuf ran to the bathroom and Arthur checked the timer.

"It has an hour left, should we just wake them up?" Arthur questioned Eames.

Eames shook his head. "Unplug Fischer, he shouldn't wonder around."

Arthur complied and looked at Cobb then at Ariadne.

"What do you think will happen?" He asked her leaning over her seat.

"He'll wake up. I know he will." She replied.

And an hour later he did.

Arthur, Eames, Yusuf and Ariadne all smiled in relief. Saito looked frightened out of his mind he pulled the phone and made his phone call. Cobb looked at all of them. Ariadne gave him an encouraging smile. The last twenty minutes of the flight Cobb kept to himself. He looked slightly terrified. He spun his totem about five times on the pull out counter before breaking into a sigh.

Ariadne then turned her seat around and looked at Arthur.

"What are you going to be doing in Los Angeles?" She asked with a smile.

He shrugged. "I kind of wanted to see Wicked." He replied seriously then smiled.

She nodded also smiling. "I don't know if that's still playing."

"Oh well. What are you going to do?" He asked.

"Well I'm really hungry." She said. "So I was thinking some food."

He nodded. "Now that you mention it, I'm pretty starved myself."

"I guess we'll just have to eat together." She said shrugging.

"I guess so."


End file.
